


Tribute

by rabidsamfan



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Grief, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-16
Updated: 2005-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidsamfan/pseuds/rabidsamfan
Summary: When the Rohirrim return to the Pelennor Fields after Cormallen, Sam finds himself a witness as they pay tribute to the fallen.





	

On the way to the city the Rohirrim turned their horses aside. Sam, mounted on a pony he barely knew and sleepy from a long night of talking, woke from his contemplations to find himself amongst the silent, solemn riders. He let himself be carried along, and if he wondered why each rider paused in passing to fetch up a stone from a fallen wall, he knew this was not the time to ask. 

They came to a bare, burnt place that stank even yet of fear and defeat, and there the cavalcade split apart and rode around the tormented ground. Across the way, Sam could see that he was not the only hobbit in the riding. Merry rode whitefaced behind Éomer, his eyes averted from the scorched earth as he balanced a stone twice the size of both his frightened fists against his pony's saddlehorn.

And now Sam could see a pile of new earth, still too raw for more than a scattering of grass, too small to be one of the earthworks that marked the fallen companies that had defended Gondor, and yet too large a grave for a Man, and he understood at last. This was where Merry's friend had died, and his horse with him, thrown down by the same Black Rider that had stabbed Frodo on Weathertop all those long months ago. They'd taken the old king of Rohan up to the City, according to Pippin, but not his horse.

Éomer stood in his stirrups and looked out over the gathered Riders and began to sing in his own language. He had a high, strong voice, which carried clean and clear over the creak of leather and the soft thumps of shifting hooves on the thick sod. Sam didn't know the words, but he knew the young King sang of honor and of sorrow by the way that the others sat straighter and let the tears slip down their cheeks.

One by one, they rode to the mound and added stones, adding their voices now to Éomer's lament, repeating the strain until even Sam could sing with them, if only he'd felt he had the right. But he hadn't known the man or the horse, hadn't been in the battle, hadn't seen more than the reflections off the tears on Merry's face.

And yet the grief was part of him; not so real perhaps as the grief he'd felt at his mother's grave, or in the never-to-be-thought-of / never-to-be-forgotten dark atop the pass of Cirith Ungol; but realer, still, than the faraway grief of a tale, no matter how true. He swept his sleeve across his eyes, and wished he'd stayed away. He had no right to be here.

They were coming to the end of the line of Riders now, and the burial mound was near three times the size it once had been. At one end of the pile Éomer was laying a shield, engraved with writing, and Merry was propping it into place with his stone. They were turning away, heading back to rejoin Aragorn, and Frodo, and the rest. Sam's pony wanted to go with them, and so did Sam, but he hesitated. The mound looked wrong to him – too bare and empty somehow. Even the barrows of the wights had borne green grass.

He dismounted and went over to look at the stones, and they reminded him of the garden wall at Bag End. There was room here, to tuck in soil, and seed. There was shade for small flowers, like the clover blossoms that still showed defiantly in the sod that had been torn by dozens of hooves. On impulse he knelt and cut out a bit of sod with his belt knife, tucked it into a crevice where it looked like it might thrive. And there was another piece he could place, and another. He was wondering how to water his plantings with something better than his own too-easy tears when he realized that he wasn't alone. 

The glare of the sun made him squint as he looked up, and the hand he raised to shade his eyes was dirty. "It needs flowers," he explained, in a voice that came out cracked, before he realized it was Gandalf who had come. Shadowfax snorted, and nodded his head in what looked so much like agreement that Gandalf laughed and Sam felt his own mouth curve upwards. "And water," he added, "if you've any to spare."

"I do," said Gandalf, and handed down a flask.

Sam watered his bit of clover, and put the cork back in, feeling better for the gesture, no matter how small. He climbed back onto his pony and handed Gandalf back the water flask. It was easier from up here. Then he waited as Gandalf and Shadowfax went once, twice, thrice, around the raised mound, in a ritual that the horse seemed to know better than the wizard.

When that was done they turned away again, and Sam took comfort from riding beside them. They did not mind if he grieved.

Behind them, through the rocks that were piled so high, the green grass and bright clover began to grow anew.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at http://rabidsamfan.livejournal.com/128755.html.
> 
>  
> 
> _"Faithful servant yet master’s bane,._  
>  Lightfoot’s foal, swift Snowmane."


End file.
